Tiny Publics: A Theory of Group Action and Culture

Introduction: Tiny Publics as Social Order

1 Introduction Tiny Publics as Social Order All politics is local. —Congressman Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill, member of the House of Representatives, 1952 to 1987 I F ALL POLITICS is local, so, I argue, is almost everything else. Action, meaning, authority, inequality, organization, and institution—all have their roots in microstructures situated in what Erving Goffman (1983) described as the “interaction order.” Although downplayed in much recent social science, small groups order and organize human life, emphasizing the power of immediate surroundings and microcultures. To revive the small group as an organizing principle of social life is my task. Further, I argue not only that these groups are discrete zones of action but that through their power in defining rights and privileges, they fit into and constitute society. As such, the small group becomes a tiny public for the purpose of civic engagement. The group—or tiny public— becomes not only a basis for affiliation, a source of social and cultural capital, and a guarantor of identity, but also a support point in which individuals and the group can have an impact on other groups or shape the broader social discourse. Groups are simultaneously loci of local allegiance and places in which allegiance to the larger public is generated and in which processes of change begin (Lichterman 2005). Social awareness begins with face-to-face behavior and continues as we learn to account for and make adjustments to the presence and the demands of others. We make collective commitments to a variety of small communities, creating what the philosopher Raimo Tuomela (2007) terms “we-mode” groups. Yet, surprisingly, in emphasizing cognition, individual agency, organizations , institutions, and societies for the past quarter-century, social scientists have neglected the meso-level of analysis. They have often ignored the local arenas where interaction is performed and institutions are inhabited, turning away from the body of research that had been so prominent in midcentury social science. Social relations are organized through a network of groups, and these tiny publics provide the action spaces in which society and communities are constituted and inequality and social differentiation are created. Small associations of individuals produce industrial wares, artistic products, political struggles, familial affiliations, and personal satisfactions. As sources of integration and affiliation, these social formations are distinct from detached individuals, large institutions, and mass society. No system can thrive without a flourishing domain of small groups. They are havens in a heartless world where faceless organizations gain a visage. The intimacy, concern, and attention of participants in small groups permit the creation of social identities and linkages to larger units (Collins 2004; Summers-Effler 2010). To the extent that these small worlds are accepting—and groups differ on this—they provide a soft community in which various personal styles are accepted and supported. Social actors are neither disconnected isolates nor a flock of conformists bound by biology or structure; though we are grouped, we are able to select how we affiliate and how we divide. Groups are not homogeneous, but neither are they random gatherings—they promote association among the like-minded. The desire expressed in groups for satisfying interaction is intense, even while the ostensible purpose is to achieve instrumental goals. Over time the expressive satisfactions of group life may support task goals, but they also may challenge those goals, straining the group’s capacity to continue. While structure shapes action, that shaping operates through the understandings and preferences of social actors. Constraints and socialization are important, but even constraints and socialization must be organized through an interaction order. People act in concert. Each group, a dense network of relations, constitutes an interactional field that develops and negotiates norms, provides expectations of continuity , and suggests the possibility of change. The group space is an arena of action that creates the predictable and ongoing relationships that are essential for a belief in social order. Predictability is not to be taken lightly; our lives depend on it. Forged within the boundaries of small groups, society is made up of the minute publics that are necessary for a robust social order at all levels. It is for this reason that I title this book Tiny Publics, a phrase that highlights the link between the groups model I propose and an understanding of civil society. Groups and local communities are publics, and they are tiny, at least by the standards of mass publics. They are what Alexis de Tocqueville (1835/1966) speaks of...